As my canjo designs evolve, I'll be adding more strings and moving in the direction of building stick dulcimers once my wood working and instrument making skills get good enough. I see perfecting my head and neck design & building capability the next hurdle to climb.
Read more…
Thanks for the feedback. I've been out of town the past several days, so was unable to keep up with my Cigar Box Nation and e-mail correspondence. So, that cut is called a "scarf joint". Good to learn the lingo. I am a novice wood worker and can only envy you with your table saw setup. All my work is done with hand (and arm powered) tools except for drilling holes for which I use an electric hand drill. My problem is I live in a flat and have no garage or extra room set aside for a wood-shop. My computer table doubles as my bench for wood working. However, if the weather is not too hot, I sometimes just go outside to do some of the work.
With regards to the angle of the joint the headstock to neck joint I have been working on is about 22 degrees and was cut with a small hack saw. Getting shallow cuts with a hand saw is still a bit tricky for me, but reducing that angle is a goal I'll be working on for future instruments. The 15 degree angle you use also sounds good to me. About a year ago I was doing research on the Internet about banjo bridges (size and positioning) and came across a measurement on one of the luthier sites called the "string break angle", which they recommended should be 15 degrees over the bridge and no less than 13 degrees nor more than 20 degrees. It makes sense that the string should bend a similar amount on the other side (i.e. the nut side). But, I haven't been designing my instruments for this spec because I haven't heard much more about it, or the benefits it provides. I prefer calling it the "string bend angle".
I'll let you know how my 3-Stringer comes out. Thanks again.
Sorry Rand. Previous comment missing photos. Cut and pasted but it only captured the text not the images. Will have to go to another computer so will upload images as soon as I can.
Hi Rand. The 2 wings on either side of the head are cut out of the neck material. I like to keep the grain in the wings straight and parallel to that in the head. I have copied below another discussion from this site which was in regard to scarf joints and how to form them. You will notice that after cutting the head piece it can be joined in two different ways. One shows the joint in the head as per the photograph which I last loaded. The other way hides this but shows a join in the side of the neck.
I cut my scarf joints on a Triton Work Bench which is set up as a table saw. It includes a sliding triangular piece which can be set for any angle of cut as shown in the photograph. Others jigs shown on this discussion are similar in design.
The joint can then be glued in either of the two following configurations. One shows a join in the head ( which could be covered by a veneer) the other shows a join in the side of the neck and in the fretboard ( a separate fretboard applied to the neck would cover this, but join in the neck still shows.
After gluing the joint the head can be reduced in thickness using the same jig as shown in the last photograph.
Wow! Your headstock & neck looks great! I like how you joined your work pieces to form the headstock. Two triangle cut pieces. The lower triangle cut piece looks like it might have been cut away from the originally rectangular piece that holds the two tuners for strings 1 & 2. Is that correct? And then another longer triangular piece on top. The use of these two triangular pieces look like they were chosen to make the head-to-neck joint stronger, correct? Are you using any dowels to strengthen the joints? Or is it just held by wood glue? And what angle are you using on the slope where the head meets the neck?
How do you mark placement of your tuners? I used MS Paint to draw my head (you saw my diagram) and I based it on the center string with the outer string being 1/2" inch apart, which is a fairly standard CBG string placement. Then, I decided I'd prefer a 3/8" string placement, since I am planning to use 1 & 1/8" wide industrial / electrical staples as frets as was recently discussed in another thread on CBN. With 3/8" spacing, I figure I have 3/16" between the outer strings and the edge of the frets if I got the frets mounted exactly right. So, now going with 3/8" string spacing, I need to tilt the line of 3 tuners up at a slightly steeper angle. So I've modified the drawing and tried to make it to scale as best I could, then printed the drawing. When I placed it against my headstock, the scale wasn't right, so by a process of trial and error, I was able to get a copy enlarged. I did this using the Windows preview image feature which allows you to zoom in at small increments and then did Ctrl-Alt-Del to get a screen shot, which I pasted back into MS Paint, saved and re-printed. I do all my printing from the Windows preview image feature, not from MS Paint! When I finally got a printout that fit my headstock well, I cut it out to use as a pattern for the tuner hole placement and used a nail to punch a hole though the pattern and onto the headstock board. Then I drilled out the holes using progressively wider drill bits. The results were fair, but I would have done better if I had a drill press.
I am writing up the process that I went thru to build my headstock (an eventually the whole instrument) on my Account name (my blog) under CBN. That posting will require the folks at CBN to proof it before making it public, but when that happens (after July 4th holidays), you can read how I made mine. Would enjoy hearing more about how you construct your instrument(s). I'm still a novice, especially at anything more that a one string canjo.
Comments
Thanks for the feedback. I've been out of town the past several days, so was unable to keep up with my Cigar Box Nation and e-mail correspondence. So, that cut is called a "scarf joint". Good to learn the lingo. I am a novice wood worker and can only envy you with your table saw setup. All my work is done with hand (and arm powered) tools except for drilling holes for which I use an electric hand drill. My problem is I live in a flat and have no garage or extra room set aside for a wood-shop. My computer table doubles as my bench for wood working. However, if the weather is not too hot, I sometimes just go outside to do some of the work.
With regards to the angle of the joint the headstock to neck joint I have been working on is about 22 degrees and was cut with a small hack saw. Getting shallow cuts with a hand saw is still a bit tricky for me, but reducing that angle is a goal I'll be working on for future instruments. The 15 degree angle you use also sounds good to me. About a year ago I was doing research on the Internet about banjo bridges (size and positioning) and came across a measurement on one of the luthier sites called the "string break angle", which they recommended should be 15 degrees over the bridge and no less than 13 degrees nor more than 20 degrees. It makes sense that the string should bend a similar amount on the other side (i.e. the nut side). But, I haven't been designing my instruments for this spec because I haven't heard much more about it, or the benefits it provides. I prefer calling it the "string bend angle".
I'll let you know how my 3-Stringer comes out. Thanks again.
Some info on scarf joints and neck angles.pdfClick here
I cut my scarf joints on a Triton Work Bench which is set up as a table saw. It includes a sliding triangular piece which can be set for any angle of cut as shown in the photograph. Others jigs shown on this discussion are similar in design.
The joint can then be glued in either of the two following configurations. One shows a join in the head ( which could be covered by a veneer) the other shows a join in the side of the neck and in the fretboard ( a separate fretboard applied to the neck would cover this, but join in the neck still shows.
After gluing the joint the head can be reduced in thickness using the same jig as shown in the last photograph.
Hope this all helps. Happy building. John D
How do you mark placement of your tuners? I used MS Paint to draw my head (you saw my diagram) and I based it on the center string with the outer string being 1/2" inch apart, which is a fairly standard CBG string placement. Then, I decided I'd prefer a 3/8" string placement, since I am planning to use 1 & 1/8" wide industrial / electrical staples as frets as was recently discussed in another thread on CBN. With 3/8" spacing, I figure I have 3/16" between the outer strings and the edge of the frets if I got the frets mounted exactly right. So, now going with 3/8" string spacing, I need to tilt the line of 3 tuners up at a slightly steeper angle. So I've modified the drawing and tried to make it to scale as best I could, then printed the drawing. When I placed it against my headstock, the scale wasn't right, so by a process of trial and error, I was able to get a copy enlarged. I did this using the Windows preview image feature which allows you to zoom in at small increments and then did Ctrl-Alt-Del to get a screen shot, which I pasted back into MS Paint, saved and re-printed. I do all my printing from the Windows preview image feature, not from MS Paint! When I finally got a printout that fit my headstock well, I cut it out to use as a pattern for the tuner hole placement and used a nail to punch a hole though the pattern and onto the headstock board. Then I drilled out the holes using progressively wider drill bits. The results were fair, but I would have done better if I had a drill press.
I am writing up the process that I went thru to build my headstock (an eventually the whole instrument) on my Account name (my blog) under CBN. That posting will require the folks at CBN to proof it before making it public, but when that happens (after July 4th holidays), you can read how I made mine. Would enjoy hearing more about how you construct your instrument(s). I'm still a novice, especially at anything more that a one string canjo.
-Rand.